Typical Day
It's 7:00AM and sixteen-year-old Jem Nasium starts her day with stretches and a smoothie.
She walks her dog (Arabesque, a standard poodle) at a light jogging pace.
They both warm up and enjoy the morning together.
She gets back home and puts on a leotard, ties her hair in a bun, and by 8:00AM she's out the door with her mom who drives her to the Shmoop Elite Gymnastic Training Center. Jem would like to get her driver's license and drive herself, but she just hasn't had time since she's busy training for the Olympics. Bummer.
Oh well, there'll be plenty of time to drive after the Olympics, Jem thinks. Besides, if she drove, she couldn't do her schoolwork in the car like she is now. Jem is homeschooled and this morning she takes care of a history assignment and reads some Huckleberry Finn while they're stuck in traffic.
Jem's mom pulls up in front of the gym an hour and a half later—it's time for Jem to get real.
From 9:30AM to 1:00PM, Jem tucks, rolls, jumps, weaves, balances, soars, and glides her way through her routines on the balance beam, parallel bars, the vault, and her floor routine. Her coach Ima Trayner is by her side the entire time, instructing her on how to get stronger, faster, and better at everything.
From 1:00PM to 2:00PM, Jem takes a break, eats a healthy light lunch of turkey on whole wheat bread and a protein yogurt smoothie. She reads a little bit more Huckleberry Finn while she eats by herself.
From 2:00PM to 5:00PM, Jem works on the choreography of her new floor routine with a specialist who has flown in from the East Coast just to give her the moves. It's fresh, vibrant, and bluesy. Jem loves it.
At 4:55PM in the last five minutes of the routine, Jem lands funny and twists her ankle. Her coach rushes to her side. Everyone in the gym hovers around her to see if she's okay. The coach picks her up and takes her out to her mom's car. When her mother sees Jem in pain, she's frantic. She drives Jem five miles to the nearest hospital. Jem is nervous and in pain but she doesn't think it's broken. It could be a hairline fracture, who knows.
When they get to the hospital, Jem is rushed into x-ray. They know Jem here; she gets injured at least once a month. Once Jem broke her wrist, which set back her training by months. But this time they're in luck—it's just a sprain.
After the two-hour ordeal in the hospital, Jem's mother drives them home. She has another two hours of homeschooling to make up.
She tries to get some of her work done in the car but it's dark by now, and she's feeling kind of tired.
It's 9:00PM by the time they get home. Jem is exhausted and starving. Her mother fixes her a light supper. Her father gives her a kiss hello and they tell him all about the ordeal in the emergency room with her foot, which is now all wrapped up. Jem is told to keep off her foot for a week, but she knows she won't be able to wait that long without training.
Jem's coach calls on the phone to ask what happened in the ER and see how she is. When he hears about the sprain he is relieved it's not a break, but warns Jem to ice and elevate it.
He gives her tomorrow off and says they'll see how her foot is before they do anything else or make any plans.
Jem already knows that she will be just fine by tomorrow afternoon. She has to be—the Olympics wait for no one.